Movie Review: Madam Web (2024)

AZ-06 Ayla: You ok Anthony? You don’t look so well.

Anthony: *starts chuckling for starting to losing it* That’s a good one…! *chuckles more, with his eyes wide open with pupils going small* This movie killed me…! AAAAAAAA--

(Review starts)

*sigh* If I though im done watching two movies in a bad results… I feel like im reaching the all time low of already giving us quite possibly be… The worst movie of the year. But im sure you know the title’s coming for my today’s Movie Review that im reaching my limit of losing myself with three strikes of badly resulted movies… Brace yourselves, my friends, we’re going back to Sony’s Marvel Universe, or should I say “Sony’s Spider-Man Universe”…

“Madam Web” is a 2024 superhero movie that was written/directed by S.J. Clarkson, produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura, and co-written by Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless, Claire Parker and Burk Sharpless.

So, how bad can it be…?!

Movie begins in the past of 1973, where Constance Webb and Ezekiel Sims are on a research about a unique species spider in Peru (basically, they’re working as arachnologists. Nope… Nope, I don’t wanna hear it, I don’t like that kind of research...) . But after Constance found an unidentified spider, Ezekiel demanded to give a spider, but when she refused, but he shot his team and even Constance, but at the same time, not only she’s rescued in attempt to be saved by the indigenous tribe, but she also gave birth of Cassandra Webb, but Constance died instantly from a gunshot, leaving Cassie all alone (but they never telling us where she had been). Fast forward to 2003 (which is 30 years later), we see Cassie Webb works as a paramedic in Manhattan with strangely, Ben Parker (you know, Peter’s beloved uncle?). But after she saved one person out of car, without warning, she fell off from the bridge to the water, and for some reason, when she’s in near death experience, she received precognition, which is the ability to see the prediction to the future, which when we see her precognition ability, its getting irritating. Meanwhile, Ezekiel, who somehow also has precognition, had a future nightmare over Spider-Women, which he wants to hunting down three girls, Julia Cornwall, Anya Corazon and Mattie Franklin, its up to Cassie Webb to save three girls without getting poisoned to death from Ezekiel’s threat.

With poor execution of the story is one thing, but the writing is just TERRIBLE to pull with plotholes, cheap humors and not even trying how to make a promising story or character developments…!

First up the filming location is not bad that I can say, even though this movie takes place on Manhattan, but they filmed somewhere in Massachusetts in order to imitating the 2000s New York city, it looks fine, I guess, even if that I though they filmed in New York, but not really, they were filmed in Worcester (for the driving scenes), Chelsea, Andover (one of which for constructing a restaurant set) and couple others in Massachusetts if I missing any. Although they did filmed in New York City and one expected time filmed in Mexico (im assuming for filming in Peru).

The way they filming is not bad, but even if it could be questionable from different angle cuts, along with taking multiple takes over Cassie’s head to look perfect (riiight…), especially they also let Dakota Johnson doing a stunt driving for a day to be filmed (Nice touch, Dakota). Even with some diopter effect filming are ok at best what they’re trying. And even the Spider-Women costumes are actually pretty nice to replicating from the comic or even slightly different.

But sadly, the positive side of the film’s presentation came to at end quickly. But most of the of their parts are cheaply and messy looking.

The special effects when they pulled are a complete mess. I mean, I get its due to the precognition abilities, but they way they pulling the effects are downright annoying and dizzying whenever it occurred that we though we get to progress, but reverses backward for switching the direction. Again, I get its all about predicting the future gone wrong, but it feels more like an experiment gone wrong with cheap cuts all over with noise all over, especially with the scene when Cassie was concerned at O’Neill’s fate, or even some precognition effect are even cheaply fast forward, like its just laughably bad when they pull off from the latter. Not to mention when there’s the special powers when they’re trying like the energy powers or even an unidentified spider, the CG effect looks like they forgot to realizing that its 2024, not 2014, because the quality itself looks so… Video game-like quality, as in in PS3 graphic era.

The most disappointing part for this movie is the action scenes, they are so lacking to be fun, all we see are the girls are running away from Ezekiel, car chasing and creating obstacle in precognition. I mean if this is supposed to be a superhero movie, aren’t the girls supposed to… I don’t know, Fighting? Yeah, the movie didn’t giving us a fun of fighting scenes how to make a good superheroes, but instead, all they do is running away and dodging obstacles, and that’s it, its lackluster and less fun. And remember that I mentioned before about the Spider-Women’s costumes? I hate to giving you SPOILER, but they’re only in the future, meaning we’ll be able to see them dawning their prototype costumes before get themselves an upgrade.

Oh and remember that I mentioned before about filming in Boston to imitating New York in 2000s? Well, the movie was suffered by reshoots for how the movie takes place on, they originally planned to be taken place in the 90s and wanting to connecting with either Marc Webb’s Spider-Man or even MCU Spider-Man, but it feels they just don’t know what to do for how to connecting which universe for the sake of potential cheap multiverse cliché (oh god…!) or even the characters’ ages like the inclusion of Ben Parker.

Despite their effort for their filming, but the movie’s presentation looks pretty, cheaply bad for their execution of the effects, the lackluster action scenes and even the sufferance of reshoots.

Lets start with our titular character, Madam Web, aka Cassandra “Cassie” Webb (played by Dakota Johnson), she’s the main protagonist who has the ability of seeing the future to protecting the future Spider-Women while working as a paramedic. Though they said they’re trying to make the character to be relatable, I maybe understand what they’re going for, but the problem is that she’s always got herself into minded troubling for making a bad choice on her way, either she’s ill-prepared for using precognition, or she’s just being an idiot. Now, I know Dakota has been a couple of bad movies like Fifty Shades movies, but its just that I think she did a nice acting in the movie, but its just the way she’s in the movie from the writing is clearly made her look bad.

Next up is the three upcoming Spider-Women, Julia Cornwall (played by Sydney Sweeney), Anya Corazon (played by Isabela Merced, aka live action Dora The Explorer) and Mattie Franklin (played by Celeste O’Connor). These girls are meant to be the upcoming heroes and the students for Madam Web, which sounds promising on paper, but it wasn’t helping that they also suffered a bad writing for what they’re doing, but also underdeveloped for the most parts, Julia is an awkward teenage school girl, Anya is a lonely girl from her father problem and Mattie is rich daughter but her parents are absent, I get they wanna make a coincidence, but it didn’t helping very much for how forgettable they are for being useless, especially those future costume was nothing but a tease for a future view and, like Cassie, they felt like either ill-prepared or idiots for their moves without a warning from the villains Though I find Sydney did an okay performance, but im quite surprised that this is the second time I watched a movie with Isabela Merced (or Moner) since she played the live action Dora The Explorer movie, so, il give a credit for her, for Mattie, I think she’s good too, but again, not for the bad writing for being involved from this movie.

And lastly, we have Ezekiel Sims (played by Tahar Rahim), the main antagonist who has a nightmare from his precognition that he wants to kill three future Spider-Women to clearing his mind. Yeah, I find him to be lame, even though he wants to hunting three girls, but it wasn’t helping very much for a plothole for how he has precognition for assassination, aside of giving a minimal of spider power like strength, speed, climbing and poisonous contact. I thought Carlton Drake is forgettable, but think Sims in this movie is somehow worse for being raging desperate for killing three girls, all because he has a nightmare vision while wearing his evil version of Spider-Man (which I will admit, it looks nice too). As always, im not trying to bashing Tahar, I think he did okay, but like always, he deserves a lot better than being in this film from bad writing.

As for the rest of characters, Its not much else to say for how worthless they’re appeared in this movie. Ben Parker (played by Adam Scott) who’s Cassie’s partner, Amaria (played by Zosia Mamet) is Ezekiel’s hacker partner and O’Neill (played by Mike Epps) who’s Cassie’s former partner for being killed off out of nowhere.

Even though the actors did their best for their performance (for the most parts), but the characters are not helping very much based on a godawful writing…!

The writing is dreadful, the story is lame, the characters are forgettable and idiots, the effects are cheaply bad and not even the actors saving themselves from this goddamn movie!

I mean, again, it may sounds like a nice idea on paper, but when they pulled that off, its just nothing but a sorry-ass movie for being pretty much wasting our time and money for being existed, despite it was already doomed from the start with a trailer! I mean I thought Morbius was the worst, but Madam Web put Morbius to shame to make it even worse. I mean what’s next Sony wants to re-releasing Madam Web for similar fashion as “Morbin’ Time”? Oh god… Il never know what Sony’s thinking…!

So in the end, its no stranger that its NOT a recommendable movie for how sh*tty this movie is. So im gonna say it again, do yourselves a favor and learn from my mistakes…! Do not, I repeat, do NOT watching this piece of sh*t movie! I know I’ve never been so angry for reviewing this movie, but this is quite possibly the second or the third time that I was pissed off for watching it in cinema since my experience of TTG To The Movie, even though I maybe anticipated to see Venom 3, but I have no hope for Sony’s own Spider-Man Universe for bringing us disappointing to sh*tty movies…! Like seriously, this universe needs to f*ck off and restart from scratch rather than keep going like nothing happened…! Again, I’ve never been so angry for my entire life for reviewing stuff like this and Argylle…!

Good god… This is the third strike I gotten myself to see three movies in a negative results… I think I need a break, I need a break of watching modern films, im so burnt out and overly disappointed to start off in 2024’s Movie Review… I think I deserve better to do reviews from the past while taking a hiatus of 2024 movies…